The occasional community activist Tony Pappas reminds me of Shabbos meal guests who have come to our home and forgotten when to leave — before the host retires for the evening, friends, not after.
Whatever he started out trying to prove, he lost the thread — or threw it away — weeks ago.
Go home, Mr. Pappas. It is over.
Better yet, stay home
You no longer are funny.
You no longer are aiding your cause, which weeks ago became befogged in a junkpile of claims of mistreatment.
Mr. Pappas originally began addressing the City Council last summer when the notion of a revised Public Nuisance Ordinance first surfaced. While the ordinance is a necessity in the legal fabric of a municipality, it is an imprecisely crafted monument to abstract language and concepts, meaning it is an irresistible playground for picky-picky gadflies such as Mr. Pappas.
The law is so written so grayly, he will be able to tear at the scabs until the end of the present century.
Since early April, when the revised Public Nuisance Ordinance was circulated, Mr. Pappas launched his campaign, seemingly to win the title of The Most Obnoxious Person to Address the City Council Every Week, his nearly empty satchel of satire already was threadbare.
Often, he figures out a way to speak at least twice a night.
Nobody likes a whiner. In Yiddish, he would be called a kvetch, which requires no interpretation.
Starting Out Behind
Mr. Pappas’s critiques of policy are legitimate, even if they quickly wore thin through the tiresome gimmick of repetition.
He will argue until sundown that, as a private citizen of this democracy, he can say any darned thing he wants to. This is true, unless your objective is to be effective.
The need to salt criticism with personal assertions egregiously exceeds the boundaries of acceptable taste.
Almost three months along, he stands before the City Council every week, slinging arrows at members and other city officials by name over perceived foibles and asserted slights. Then he smiles bemusedly over the faux wisdom he believes he has just imparted.
This being a democracy, Mayor Andy Weissman and the City Council are powerless to stop him.
Since Mr. Pappas knows that policy generally prohibits Council members from directly replying to his barbs, he hurls criticism at members with the confidence of a gentleman who knows there is a barrier protecting him from retribution.
Where Is the Stop Sign?
Isn’t there anyone close enough to him to warn, “Pal, you are hurting your case every time you appear”?
Personally, I like him. If we have bonded a little, I think there is a case of rebelliousness that is fighting to get out from the inside of both of us.
In all of life, there are fences, perhaps not always obvious, that must ought not be breached.
To be effective, satire must be scattered and exquisitely timed, as cemeteries full of dead vaudevillians will attest.
Mr. Pappas’s unrelenting drumbeat creates the opposite effect.
